Madam Speaker, the member for Ajax—Pickering was spinning us a tale, a tale that forgot about the history of our economy going back to the 1980s. The member may not remember this because he would have been quite young at the time, but in the early 1980s we also suffered a recession in Canada. It was a recession that was caused by the Liberal Party which had an ideology that did not serve the best interests of Canadians. We were left in serious straits which we only came out of when a new Conservative government was elected in 1984.
It is interesting that the recession of that day was driven by high taxes, high deficits and a very high national debt. What is different today? We have an international economic meltdown and yet Canada is still the best placed nation with the strongest economic fundamentals. Unlike the 1980s when the Liberals through their ideology caused such a terrible recession with high taxes and high deficits, today we have paid down $40 billion worth of debt, we have reduced taxes and our national mortgage is down. We can look forward with great optimism to the future.
How is it that the member has forgotten the lessons of history and is again talking about spending money to get us out of this recession? How is it that he is now taking an approach that is similar to the failed approach of the early 1980s? Why does he not recognize that the approach by the Prime Minister is one that is based in fact?